Friday, March 18, 2016

Political Murals in Belfast

Sorry that I couldn't post for the past several days. The wi-fi in our Dublin hotel just didn't like our Mac laptops. Frustrating, but now that we're back in Portland, I've got lots of photos from Northern Ireland and Dublin to post.

March 15: We had two days of touring in Northern Ireland with Paddy Campbell in his famous black cab. We began on March 15 by seeing the divided neighborhoods in Belfast. The "troubles" have calmed down, and Belfast is now a safe city but Catholics and Protestants live in separate neighborhoods, do not generally mix, the kids go to separate schools, etc. For the tourist, the most prominent remaining evidence of this conflict is the political murals painted on walls and on the ends of apartment buildings. Here are a few examples.

Our guide showing us three kinds of rubber or plastic bullets, that are supposedly non-lethal but in fact killed many people (mainly Catholics/IRA sympathizers) when fired at short range by the police (almost entirely Protestant).